It’s not really all that quiet.

There has been a dearth of activity recently around these parts. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First off, last month I had two occasions where I found myself vomiting. Spaced exactly two weeks apart, I had just really, really horrible nights - the second time I actually was either going to drive myself to the hospital or call 911.

Vomiting for kids or as a young person is a big deal but, at this point in life it is absolutely traumatic.

The first time I finished my volunteer work and came home to some dinner after which while I can’t say I felt off... I just didn’t feel right. My mouth was coated, I was burping and well... without going into detail lots was happening. Later on I tried unsuccessfully just to sleep through it.

I don’t know what it is but, I spoken to people round about my age and whenever you’re feeling off, the first thing you hope is that a good dose of sleep will allow whatever is wrong to work its way through the system and when you wake up you’ll feel a lot better. I laid in bed for a few hours before I got to a point sometime around 3 am where the thought struck me that I may in fact vomit. Literally, it was just like that! I got up to make my way to the bathroom in preparation and only made it as far as the nearest trashcan.

Not fun.

So, after lying on the floor for a good twenty or so minutes (and this actually felt good), a few more trips to the bathroom and finally I was able to rest for a bunch of hours. Two days later I was back on solid food again and things were slowly returning to normal.

Hey, it happens! I figured it was just something off with dinner (although it didn’t taste off) and wrote it off to food poisoning.

Two weeks passed and again, I did my volunteer work and returned home to dinner (something entirely different). No burping or anything but, a few hours later I got to thinking I felt like it might happen again!

Sure enough, whammo - this time I didn’t fight it but it was incredibly more violent. So much so that for a bunch of days later my sides hurt from the strain. Well, that night was way worse, I even thought I was going to pass out at one point. I went to the doc the following week, got checked out and the doc wrote it off to coincidence and food poisoning.

Thing is, I spoke to a bunch of people over the next few weeks and heard a bunch of similar stories about people getting rapidly sick to the point of puking. I got the feeling there has been some kind of really nasty bug that‘s been going around this winter.

Well, that was one thing, the other was that I wasn’t the only sick creature.

My beloved little furry beast had taken to just willy-nilly not using the box. I mean there was a minefield of poop that had to be cleaned up. It was horrible and very much unlike her. So, she has been confined to a single room – this sucks if only because I am really accustomed to having my little companion by my side pretty much all the time when I am home and I miss her.

I did some reading and found that sometimes kitties just do this. So, the whole confinement in a single room was a bit of an experiment to determine two things:

One, was the kitty getting into something that was causing her system distress and

Two, would confining her keep her out of whatever it was she had gotten into.

So, a week went past and there was much mournful crying (on kitty’s part). However, on the good side the frequency of kitty puking that had been going on decreased noticeably so, it proved kitty was in fact getting into something. However, usage of the kitty box was still not up to normal standards.

So, a trip to the vet was in order where it was discovered kitty has feline hyperthyroidism. Fortunately, it is something treatable but, in the interim before the new medication takes hold, my little buddy is demanding quite a bit of attention in terms of maintenance and the like. I can hardly deny her. She at this point is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 (at least) years old and I am compelled to care for her to the best of my ability as my love for such a tiny critter is so great.

Finally, the work situation has just taken off, incredibly so. It has just been as busy as busy can be and between all these other things there is too much spare time and what there is of it I am trying to cram in some things to make life fun. So, for the time being the thing that suffers is the blog.